284 THROUGH ANGOLA 



and workers. In his work the soldier is provided 

 with a formidable pair of jaws, the worker with a 

 knobbed head to build or mend his house with. 



I spent many hours while in the country open- 

 ing up ant-hills and watching ants at work, but 

 never met the elaborate designs of royal apart- 

 ments for queens and nurseries for larvae, so often 

 described by older writers as the work of termites. 

 The ant-hills in Angola consisted of large numbers 

 of irregularly shaped cells and connecting galleries, 

 while the queen ants had comparatively small cells. 



The termites seemed to work ceaselessly ; 

 building, storing food, tending the cell gardens of 

 fungi grown for food, or looking after the queen 

 and the larvae which are their special charge. 



All white ants are blind and dread the sunlight, 

 and appear to favour the night for their hardest 

 work. When building their tunnels or houses, 

 they may actually be heard, if the night be still 

 and they are working on any resounding surface, 

 such as a wooden board or matting. 



When the time of mating comes, the winged 

 males and females emerge from the ant-hill and 

 fly off to form new colonies. Both soon lose their 

 wings -- -but in the period of flight millions find a 

 sudden end in the crop and maw of bird and 

 reptile, while even the Angolan native is not above 

 adding " salalcv' as the Portuguese call the white 

 ant, to his " infundi,'' as a chutney or caviare. 



The destructiveness of white ants is proverbial. 

 While on my trip in Angola, a pair of boots were 

 damaged in one day. a wooden box destroyed in 

 two ; and this little insect, which, for good or ill. 



